


Squeezing Through the Narrows

by Librasmile (Tenthsun)



Series: Librasmile's Harry Potter Meta Essays, Notes and Fragments [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Analysis, Essays, Geography, Meta, Metafiction, magical geography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:22:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenthsun/pseuds/Librasmile
Summary: Oh you thought Knockturn Alley was as low as it got? Foolish child. Clearly you've never heard of The Narrows. Welcome to the wizarding world's real skid row...





	Squeezing Through the Narrows

**Author's Note:**

> _I originally had this info included as an endnote for my 'Night Knight chapter of Help Wanted. Then I realized I should probably add it to this series in a clarified form so that people understand what it is. As is the case with everything else in this series, don't be surprised if I use it in a fiction piece. In fact, that's what I created The Narrows for. However, I haven't written that story yet. Give it time..._

**The Narrows**  – a name used to refer collectively to extremely rural or fringe settlements within Magical Britain. Loosely administered by the Ministry of Magic, the Narrows is comprised of the lowest tiers of wizard society, even lower than Knockturn Alley. 

These are wizards who wouldn’t even be admitted to the [Cornwall Institute for Practical Magic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5965297/chapters/13709317) - that "downmarket excuse" of a wizard school as Severus archly describes it. Although Cornwall students may use wands if they wish, the denizens of the Narrows generally don’t or can’t. They typically don’t have enough magic to channel through a wand yet they are still not squibs. They can do very very simple wandless spells like lighting a candle or reading tarot cards but a Cornwall alum could spell circles around them if they wished.

Think something like this couldn't exist? Just ask yourself: where did the trolley lady on the Hogwarts Express go to school? Or the little maid in the Prisoner of Azkaban who told her growling hotel guest that she'd come back later? You think THEY went to Hogwarts? Sure they did... People don't disappear just because they don't have enough money or status - or, in this case, magical power - to hang with the middle class or upscale crowd. Hogwarts, in my humble little AU fanfic writer's opinion, is an elite school, no matter how often that notion is denied or soft-pedaled. Which means scores of people CANNOT get in. Where do they all go? Where do they come from? Where do they LIVE? Where do the WEREWOLVES live when they aren't howling at the moon?  
  
These are all questions I can't help but try to answer. And I haven't figured them all out yet. But the one thing I DO know is that they're important too.   
  
  
**Some communities in the Narrows:**

  * **Groden Wood** \- an ancient magical forest that includes hamlets dotted here and there, an orchard and processing plant, a boarding house for female laborers. THIS location actually is slated to play a part in my wannabe Pansy-Harry story, "Harry Potter and the Poisoned Apple Princess". Hopefully I'll get it done one day. * crosses fingers *
  * **Hag’s Den aka Haggsden** \- a grotty little hamlet where Filch's girlfriend, Bettie Raggsdale lives with her neighbor Kate Nettlesby.
  * Ironbrook or Ironbrück
  * **Kettle-pitch Park** \- a caravan park for itinerant laborers; most of them wind up working at the Groden Wood orchards.
  * Scrappden
  * Sludgeden
  * Tappden
  * **Undermoss Grate** \- home of Dorothy Letitia Cottonwood, the little housemaid at the Leaky Cauldron in Prisoner of Azkaban.



 

Yeah I know. I need more hobbies...

**Author's Note:**

> _Yes I made all the original characters' names up. Yes I made up the names of all the locations. But hey, it's fanfic, I can do that. *grin*_


End file.
